Quote

A good title holds magic, some cognitive dissonance, a little grit between the teeth, but above all it is the jumping-off place into wonder.

Barbara Kingsolver

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Barbara Kingsolver
Age: 69
Born: 1955
Born: April 8
Essayist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Annapolis
Maryland
Wonder
Grit
Place
Cognitive
Littles
Jumping
Little
Title
Book
Titles
Good
Holds
Teeth
Magic
Dissonance

More quotes by Barbara Kingsolver

Image
The death of something living is the price of our own survival, and we pay it again and again. We have no choice. It is the one solemn promise every life on earth is born and bound to keep.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
Global commerce is driven by a single conviction: the inalienable right to earn profit, regardless of any human cost.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
What keeps you going isn't some fine destination but just the road you're on, and the fact that you know how to drive.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
What we end up calling history is a kind of knife, slicing down through time. A few people are hard enough to bend its edge. But most won't even stand close to the blade. I'm one of those. We don't bend anything.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
It's a funny thing: people often ask how I discipline myself to write. I can't begin to understand the question. For me, the discipline is turning off the computer and leaving my desk to do something else.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
Tomorrow these villagers would carry their secret icons into the church without any priest and light the candles themselves, moving together in single-minded grace. Like the school of the fish, so driven to righteousness they could flout the law, declare the safety of their souls, then go home and destroy the evidence.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
The writing has been on the wall for some years now, but we are a nation illiterate in the language of the wall. The writing just gets bigger. Something will eventually bring down the charming, infuriating naïveté of Americans that allows us our blithe consumption and cheerful ignorance of the secret ugliness that bring us whatever we want.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
Prayer had always struck me as more or less a glorified attempt at a business transaction.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
He had senile dementia and liked to go outside naked, but he could still do two things perfectly: win at checkers and write out prescriptions.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
Nine-tenths of human law is about possession.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
Now I'm starting to think he wasn't supposed to be my whole life, he was just this doorway to me.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
In the long run, most of us spend about fifteen minutes total in the entanglements of passion, and the rest of our days looking back on it, humming the tune.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
I do my best work if I think about what it is I have to offer.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
We're animals. We're born like every other mammal and we live our whole lives around disguised animal thoughts.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
Anybody can get worked up, if they have the intention. It's peacefulness that is hard to come by on purpose.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
Science doesn't tell us what we should do. It only tells us what is.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
It's one thing to carry your life wherever you go. Another thing to always go looking for it somewhere else.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
My worst nightmare is being stuck somewhere with nothing to read.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
In Kilanga, people knew nothing of things they might have had - a Frigidaire? a washer-dryer combination? Really, they'd sooner imagine a tree that could pull up its feet and go bake bread. It didn't occur to them to feel sorry for themselves.
Barbara Kingsolver
Image
Hallie and I... were all there was. The image in the mirror that proves you are still here. We had exactly one sister apiece. We grew up knowing the simple arithmetic of scarcity: A sister is more precious than an eye.
Barbara Kingsolver